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When the New York Mets season begins on March 30, Gary Cohen, Ron Darling, and Keith Hernandez will begin their 18th season calling Mets baseball on SNY. Once the first pitch is thrown, the trio will be the longest-running broadcast crew in Mets history, passing the great trio of Lindsey Nelson, Bob Murphy, and Ralph Kiner.

Cohen was a guest on the latest episode of the Starkville podcast as part of The Athletic Baseball Show: A show about MLB with Jayson Stark and Doug Glanville. He said that the trio have formed a great bond since that first season when none of them had an idea as to where the TV journey would take them.

“I think that Keith, Ron, and I have had a really special bond and I think it started from Day 1 because honestly when they put us together in 2006, none of us really had any idea what we were doing. I was a radio guy moving to TV, Keith had kind of dabbled, but he hadn’t taken it seriously and Ron had done one year in Washington with very little direction and really was not particularly accomplished. I think we all leaned on each other from Day 1.”

So, what has been the key to their success? Cohen thought it was because none of them looks to be the star of the broadcast and that they want everyone else to do well.

“Nobody wants to be the star. Everybody allows everybody else to shine. We genuinely get along with each other and we have a lot of fun. I think being in a dark room when we started and not really knowing what direction we were going, we kind of had to hold hands to find our way and I think we’ve done that.”

Cohen told Stark and Glanville that he does take the time to talk to young broadcasters and he tries to be helpful and honest with his advice. He has been impressed at the amount of talent that has entered the business over the years.

“One of the things that has really impressed me over the last dozen years or so is how much young talent is coming into our business. I think there was a while there where I felt as though some of the people who would be best suited to be broadcasters were choosing other fields. I think because of the spread of different cable networks and the greater availability of sports on radio and TV has attracted more really bright talented young people into the business. I really enjoy talking to them and I try to do as much as I can for them.”

Before SNY, Cohen was in the radio booth calling Mets games on WFAN for 17 years and he got to call games with Bob Murphy, which he still can’t believe.

“I grew up listening to Bob, Lindsey, and Ralph. They were the soundtrack of summers and they were the voices that meant Mets baseball. Just to have the opportunity to sit next to Bob Murphy for 15 years in the radio booth, I pinch myself every day that this was actually happening.”

Cohen told the duo that when he got to SNY, he never thought that it would have gone as well as it has.

“I was a radio chauvinist and I really had no intention of ever moving over to TV. But, when SNY started, they courted me and I reluctantly accepted. I never could have dreamed it would have gone this well.”

The trio of Cohen, Hernandez, and Darling have established themselves as one of the more informative and entertaining broadcast booths in all of baseball and it brings a lot of Mets fans joy to hear them call the games on a nightly basis as they reach this historic landmark together.